So I See... Konting Pananaw... LITO BANAYO

Friday, September 5, 2008

She's overworked, but underpaid." That really takes the cake, coming as it did from the Press Secretary, mismo.

Malacañang really takes us for fools. "Ginagago tayo," as the tambays of Tondo would say.

First, everybody and his mother knows that the official salary is the least of a president's concerns. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her successors live in the fine splendour of a palace, albeit stinking and beside a stinking river, still as grand as grand can be. Her household expenses are charged to the taxpayer, even the fine XO cognac that she sips each night. She moves around in a limousine followed by a half-kilometer long convoy of gas guzzlers, and when it strikes her fancy, which is almost always, takes a bevy of helicopters to wherever else in Luzon, or the islands. When she leaves for abroad, whether it is to come and go "like a thief in the knight" (that's another classic from the bowels of the Press Secretary's office) to Boao in Hainan, China, or with a planeload of congressmen and other ass-lickers to Washington DC to dog Obama and McCain, the taxpayer foots the huge bill.

Again, as the tambays of Tondo would say of a lucky fellow who got a government job, "Binigyan ka na nga ng trabaho, naghahanap ka pa ng suweldo?" which is exactly what the masa would say of Gloria. "Presidente ka na nga, tataasan mo pa ang suweldo mo?"

Talagang lokohan.

The unkindest cut is that her budget secretary, Nonoy Andaya, would try to sneak it into the "president's budget" and make it look as part of her generosity towards government workers. Because while she would get a hundred percent increase (remember, she's "overworked and underpaid"), "her" workers would get tokens, not even enough to pay for the horrendous price increases triggered by her unconscionable VAT on everything.

Do it the proper way, her bête noire in the Senate, Ping Lacson, advises her. He filed Senate Bill 42 long before, which seeks to rationalize the pay scale of government officials and employees, which is being supported by no less than "her" Civil Service Commission. (I refer to the CSC as an institution, not to its previous chairperson, my friend Karina Constantino David, who would bristle at being tagged "hers"). Get the measure passed in Congress, Lacson says, instead of "sneaking in billions of taxpayer's money into next year's budget, which cannot be used anyway because the Constitution prohibits it," Lacson said.

Under Art. VII, Sec. 6 of the 1987 Constitution, "the salaries of the President and Vice-President shall be determined by law and shall not be decreased during their tenure. No increase in said compensation shall take effect until after the expiration of the term of the incumbent during which such increase was approved."

Under Art. VI, Sec. 10, "the salaries of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives shall be determined by law. No increase in said compensation shall take effect until after the expiration of the full term of all the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives approving such increase."

So why did Andaya sneak in the funds for the pay hikes in the 2009 "president's budget" knowing that the Constitution prohibits both the executive and the legislative which altogether pass the law to benefit from any increases in salary during their incumbency? Rolando Andaya Jr. is a lawyer, a product of Father Bernas' Ateneo College of Law.

Obviously, so his president can realign the funds, whichever way she pleases. "May dagdag, may dagdag" na naka-lungga sa budget, at pwede niyang hugutin kung saan niya gustong gastahin. Maybe for more doggie bags to her favorite congressmen and her favorite governors.

Ang daya mo naman, Nonoy. You used to be such a nice guy, como tu papa, the super-efficient and super-liked Rolly. It must be the ill wind that goes around in the stinking palace beside the stinking river. Or the infectious lying, cheating and stealing that is hallmark of the Arroyo presidency.

***

Now to our senators: Are they aware that their Senate security people practice discrimination against the ordinary man?

A friend of mine travelled to the Senate last week in a taxicab. At the entrance to the GSIS Complex which houses the Senate as tenant, all vehicles are routinely checked, taxicabs more thoroughly than private cars. Fine enough. But after you're "processed" and you reach the south bend, private cars are allowed in, while passengers of taxicabs, or jeepneys presumably, cannot come in. The passenger has to alight, and walk all the way to the Senate entrance, after being frisked by another layer of security people.

Why the discrimination? When my friend finally got inside, after undergoing another usual security check at the lobby, he went to the Senate press and information office and complained to his friends if they were aware of the discriminatory practice. He was met with questioning stress, by media people, mind you, and asked, "E bakit ka kasi nagta-taxi, may kotse ka naman?"

Wow! And this is supposed to be the SPQP? Senatus Populus Que Philippinensis. The Senate of the People of the Philippines.

Kung wala kang kotse, maglakad ka?

Tapos sila, naka Numero Siete. I have even seen convoys of two senators with about three or four back-up vehicles, preceded by two motorcycle-riding security personnel, sashaying around Roxas Boulevard, making way for the "precious" cargo of "bopols" in their convoy.

Lito Banayo

Lito Banayo’s involvement in Philippine politics began with a chance encounter with the late Benigno Aquino, Jr. in the spring of 1981, at the Washington Hotel in Washington D.C. Ninoy Aquino was then on exile, after having undergone heart bypass surgery. That started a series of week-end visits to Ninoy’s home in Boston.

In the fall of 1982, Lito decided to come home to the Philippines after two-year stay in the United States, and as he bade goodbye to Ninoy, he was asked to help the then fledging political opposition in the country.

Lito Banayo asked Ninoy who he would report to, and was told to see Doy Laurel. Banayo was quizzical, for the Laurels had been Marcos’ political padrinos in the past. Ninoy told him however that Doy Laurel and he grew up together and were almost like brothers. Thus did Lito Banayo enter the world of a political technician, his description for the kind of work he has been doing since.

He helped Doy Laurel and Eva Estrada Kalaw organized the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) which became the major coalition against the Marcos regime. At a time when media was controlled and Marcos’ monolithic political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was all over, UNIDO put up a difficult but nonetheless successful struggle.

In the 1984 Batasang Pambansan elections, the UNIDO coalition won 60 of 180 seats, with an overwhelming majority in Metro Manila and key capital cities. Lito Banayo was deputy spokesperson and deputy campaign manager of that national campaign, working under Ernesto Maceda, who later became Senate President, and Alfonso Policarpio, Ninoy’s publicist.

When Ninoy Aquino returned to the Philippines after years of exile, it was Lito Banayo who, along with Erik Espina, coined the welcome slogan “Ninoy, Hindi Ka Nag-iisa,” a welcome greeting that eventually became a political battlecry after the latter was assassinated at the tarmac of the international airport.

When Cory Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, and Doy Laurel, his childhood friend, later challenged Ferdinand Marcos in the historic “snap” elections of February 1986, Lito was one of the major campaign technicians in an effort that drew many volunteers from all walks of life.

He was appointed Postmaster-General after the Edsa uprising that resulted in the downfall of Marcos and the ascent of Aquino. At the postal office, he initiated major systemic reforms, and initiated its transformation from a budget-dependent office under the transport and communications department into an autonomous government corporation now called Philippine Postal Corporation.

He has become political consultant to various names in Philippine politics – Senator Orlando Mercado, Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan, and now Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. He was consultant too of Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr., Ronaldo Zamora, Manuel A. Roxas III and Hernando B. Perez, all congressmen at the time.

In 1992, he was campaign spokesman of the Mitra-Fernan presidential tandem. In 1995, he handled the campaign of Senator, later Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan. In 1998, he was in the campaign team that helped Joseph Ejercito Estrada become president of the land. His erstwhile principal, Mercado, was named campaign manager. During the term of President Estrada, he was Secretary-General of Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, the political party of the then President.

He served as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority from June 30, 1998 to November 3, 2000. He was also concurrently appointed as Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs with cabinet rank, by President Joseph Estrada. Although he resigned from the Estrada cabinet earlier, he was with the deposed president until his last hours in Malacanang.

In 2001, he was campaign manager for then retired PNP director-general Ping Lacson’s difficult but highly successful run for the Philippine Senate. He also helped Ping Lacson as a contender for the presidency in 2004, as well as Manila Mayor Lito Atienza in administrative matters at City Hall during his term.

Lito Banayo finished Economics at Letran College, then undertook graduate studies at the Ateneo Business School, as well as the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration.

He is native of San Pablo City, Laguna, and Malolos, Bulacan, but his family has moved to Butuan City in Agusan del Norte since the early sixties, although he himself has lived in Manila throughout most of his life. He is married and is blessed with three children.